Skepticism

EVENTS

I notice Mal Brough is rather flat-chested himself

OK, Australians, help me out here — I’m always getting confused by your political parties. Here in the US, the word “liberal” is strongly associated with the political left and progressive politics. Elsewhere in the world, it’s not: the Australian Liberal party refers to classical liberalism, which is actually center-right, rather conservative politics, right? And they’re in a coalition with the National Party, which is predominantly rural and conservative? I get so tangled up trying to sort these things out.

Aww, screw it. Let’s just identify them as the misogynist jerkwad party. It seems they have a unique way of sniping at the Labor Party (center left, ja? Like our Democrats?) which involves printing up sexist dinner menus.

The menu was presented at a dinner for former minister and Liberal National Party election candidate Mal Brough.

Updates
There’s votes to be got by pushing the MRA like properties of the Liberal Party into the media. Julia Gillard is also hoping to gain by pushing fears on losing abortion rights if the libs get into power.

OK, Australians, help me out here — I’m always getting confused by your political parties. Here in the US, the word “liberal” is strongly associated with the political left and progressive politics. Elsewhere in the world, it’s not: the Australian Liberal party refers to classical liberalism, which is actually center-right, rather conservative politics, right?

Correct.

And they’re in a coalition with the National Party, which is predominantly rural and conservative?

Correct.

Let’s just identify them as the misogynist jerkwad party.

Even more correct.

.. the Labor Party (center left, ja? Like our Democrats?)

Hai.

Well, they just lost my vote, if ever I emigrated to Australia.

Well, as with the USA’s Democratic party – the ALP has its flaws but its sure beats the only other actual political alternative.

I’m just really, really hoping the current polls chaneg and we retain the current minority ALP-Greens minority government. To save us from “Tea Party” Tony Abbott* who famously called climate change “crap” and thinks Co2 is weightless. Also if nothing else to imagine the looks on the conservative (rightwingers) pollies faces when they still lose and face the same situation they’ve been squealing about since the last (2010) election.

In the US, “classical liberalism” is the doctrine espoused by the Libertarian Party: limited government, laissez-faire capitalism and a general social structure of “might makes right,” the idea that material success and the power that comes with it is the only measure of a person’s worth. “Social liberalism” such as is endorsed (in theory) by the US Democratic Party, is a different critter, and starts with principles asserting the inherent value of the individual and the belief that societies are healthier when their members are taken care of.

The Liberal Party of Australia is definitely in the “classical liberalism” camp, and makes the US Libertarian Party look like a bunch of Marxists.

Sophia, Michelin-starred General of the First Mediterranean Iron Chef Batallionsays

I saw on the news this evening that the menu in question was printed as a joke (ha, get it … blurgh) by the caterer of the event in question (who also happens to be a supporter of the aforementioned jerkwads) and was then posted online.

Nonetheless, it’s unfunny in the extreme and all-too-often how alleged adults behave down here when they think they’re being clever: “Ha ha, you have a big bum. Ha ha!”

As for Aussie politics, yes – the Liberals are actually conservative, the Nationals are a conservative national embarrassment, Labor are under far too much influence from the right-wing faction that installed Gillard over former PM Rudd and are neither left-wing, Liberal nor “US liberal” (but do seem to be imploding slightly), both major parties are really slight variations on the Corporate Party, republicans (small “r”) are just people who don’t want the Queen on our money anymore, Democrats are extinct and the Greens (formerly headed by one Mr Brown) are the only left-wing party left.

Ms Gillard [said] the menu followed a “pattern of behaviour” from the opposition.

This is quite true. Not only from the parliamentary Liberal/National opposition, but from the right-leaning press – the use of vile, misogynistic, dehumanizing rhetoric towards the Prime Minister has been utterly shameless and quite unrelenting.

Sweeping aside the specific political issues and how the different parties handle them; what is with the childish behavior overall? As we see in the US in many other ways, the political parties kick out things like that menu which would seem immature for a high school student, much less adults.

16 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime Minister

On immigration:

1. ‘Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.’

2. ‘These people aren’t so much seeking asylum, they’re seeking permanent residency. If they were happy with temporary protection visas, then they might be able to argue better that they were asylum seekers’

On rights at work:

3. ‘If we’re honest, most of us would accept that a bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or a bad husband … you find that he tends to do more good than harm. He might be a bad boss but at least he’s employing someone while he is in fact a boss.’

On women:

4. ‘The problem with the Australian practice of abortion is that an objectively grave matter has been reduced to a question of the mother’s convenience.’

5. ‘I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons’

6. ‘I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak’

7. ‘What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up, every year…’

On Julia Gillard:

8. ‘Gillard won’t lie down and die’

On climate change:

9. ‘Climate change is absolute crap’

10. ‘If you want to put a price on carbon why not just do it with a simple tax.’

On homosexuality:

11. ‘I’d probably … I feel a bit threatened’

12. ‘If you’d asked me for advice I would have said to have – adopt a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about all of these things…’

On Indigenous Australia:

13. ‘Now, I know that there are some Aboriginal people who aren’t happy with Australia Day. For them it remains Invasion Day. I think a better view is the view of Noel Pearson, who has said that Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country’s British Heritage’

14. ‘Western civilisation came to this country in 1788 and I’m proud of that…’

15. ‘There may not be a great job for them but whatever there is, they just have to do it, and if it’s picking up rubbish around the community, it just has to be done’

On Nicola Roxon:

16: ‘That’s bullshit. You’re being deliberately unpleasant. I suppose you can’t help yourself, can you?’

Hankstar [Mandrellian] @ #6 has summed up the local scene well in his last paragraph.

The Australian Democrats were a minority left-ish social-humanitarian party whose position (in terms of policy, demographics of support, and strategic significance) is now largely taken by the Greens. They are no longer active.

Most of the political pundits have been saying Julia Gillard’s political leadership is doomed – for a rather long time.

The Murdoch media and mainstream press here has been running a staggeringly vicious propaganda campaign against her ever since she took office.

(Yes, by agreeeing to a political party & national leadership switch from ex-PM Kevin Rudd who is least popular in the circles that know him best. OTOH, Gillard has convincingly beaten Rudd on the political numbers thrice whilst Opposition leader Abbott beat his rival Malcolm Turnbull just once and by only a single tainted vote. Peter Slipper’s vote.* Yet Abbott gets no criticism for that political switch in the mainstream media which never shuts up about the ALP’s change from Rudd to Gillard. Go figure.)

She’s still there despite so very many predictions she’d be gone over the past few years. She’s a remarkable leader and one very tough, admirable woman. You write her off at your peril and I will bet $50 bucks – a princely sum for me – that she will survive and win despite the commentators and misogynists and current atmosphere of political doom’n’gloom.

I get the feeling the right-winger opposition Coalition are more scared of her than they are letting on and that Abbot who is prone to self-destruction and widely despised will come under crucial deadly scrutiny when the campaign finally gets underway in earnest.

I hope so. Could be wrong, but, shiiiiiiittt, I hope I’m not.

+++++

* Long story. Peter Slipper was a liberal MP of dubious character who made misogynist remarks and is under investigation on a few counts who was (breifly) made speaker by the ALP after deserting his former party then forced to resign when a few unsavoury issues came to light. It was during a debate over him that PM Gillard made her famous misogyny speech

5. ‘I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons’

Politics: it’s more of a guy thing.

10. ‘If you want to put a price on carbon why not just do it with a simple tax.’

The relevance of this is that this was his position when the Rudd government proposed a carbon trading scheme to limit emissions.

Since the introduction of the modified scheme under Gillard, which begins with a pricing scheme (“tax”) instead, and moves to trading in the following years, he has been campaigning rabidly against it, calling it a “great big tax”, predicting the collapse of Australian industry and the economy, ridiculously inflated financial impacts on households, the implosion of the sun, small children to be devoured by rabid drop bears, Collingwood winning the grand final, dogs and cats living together, and so on.

I have always been utterly confused at the idea of Liberalism as a Right-Wing philosophy X-/

The definition of Liberalism as a system of Government as I have always understood it is:

a political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties.

Well, in the UK we have the Liberal Democrats, who are socially liberal and in favour of a more representative system of democracy in the UK (e.g. election reform). So that’s at least easy to understand. They’re rather better known amoungst their voters (myself and the ones I know anyway) for not being able to organise a piss-up in a brewery and throwing in with the equally accurately named Conservative party at the last election to the consternation of pretty much everyone.

The likely next leader of the country says that “I think I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question… it [their virginity] is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving”

“Abortion is the easy way out”

His student politics were awesome too
“I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons”

and he literally physically menaced a woman who beat him for student body chairperson (punched the wall next to her head) and proceeded to call her “chair-thing” for the rest of her term.

So no, the Liberal party is not centre-right. We are actually significantly behind y’all in abortion rights (which is illegal in several states, although the laws are rarely enforced) for example, the Liberals are currently hard right under this guy. Maybe not meteoric right Republicans, but as far right as the rest of the world goes before reaching open xenophobia.

I cannot believe Australians will actually vote for “Tea Party Tony” Abbott to become Prime Minister on Sept 14th 2013. I know that’s not what a hell of a lot of people are saying or thinking right now (operative words there) but ..

April this year, Abbot gave a speech at an event hosted by the Institute of Public Affairs, the most prominent policy wonk-tank of the right, whose position is laissez-faire capitalism, “conservative values”, yadda yadda yadda.

At the same dinner, the IPA presented its 75-point manifesto for a hypothetical Abbot government. (Scroll down for the full list: I don’t endorse the editorial attached {as I haven’t read it} – this was just the first link I could locate with the full list)

Neither did I, but what I hear in terms of “I can’t wait until after the election” and naive admiration for everything “market” and “liberal” lately — even from non-bogans — makes me worry that we, collectively, are.

Oh and apparently the menu was meant for a 2-person audience, namely the caterer who made it up plus his son, not the entire party. Not that it makes the sentiment better, but at least we’re not at the point where a major party can do this kind of shit in public.

he has been campaigning rabidly against it, calling it a “great big tax”, predicting the collapse of Australian industry and the economy, ridiculously inflated financial impacts on households, the implosion of the sun, small children to be devoured by rabid drop bears, Collingwood winning the grand final, dogs and cats living together, and so on.

It always amuses me when climate deniers have the gall to accuse “warmists” of scaremongering and doom and gloom and then proceed to go on a factless paranoid rant about how reducing CO2 emissions will be the collapse of western civilization.

Note cartoon at the 1 min 59 secs mark – & a few other moments – shows Cardinal Pell – one Catholic high muckmuck who Abbott is personally very close to and a name that may be familiar here from this :

PZ, Your assumptions about the political landscape here are largely correct. The vulgar comment made about Julia was very wrong and deserves censure. You should respect the office even if you have nothing but contempt for the job that the person filling it is doing. The difficulty with your analogies is that YOUR democrats have some commons sense. Our Labor party is currently so toxic to the electorate that they will be decimated at the Sept election. (and deservedly so). Normally coming up to an election the incumbent party has an advantage. They’ve been in power for six years, they can point to all their accomplishments and successful policies. Unfortunately, there aren’t any. All I am currently hearing from the Labor Party and their supporters is criticism of Tony Abbott, usually personal. They have nothing else to focus on, nothing else to talk about. Don’t fall for it. The Labor Party is historically considered to be the party of the Trade Unions, while the Liberals are the party of Business and Conservative capitalism. The polls are telling us that working class people who’ve NEVER voted anything but Labor, will dump them for the first time ever in their voting lives. I’m encouraged, the average intelligence of the electorate is actually higher than I thought. Roll on September !

No, I hail from a land populated in large part by British Remittance men.

However my ancestors were lucky or smart enough to leave Poland in the late 1920’s via France and England, finally washing ashore in Canada and the US. I have an aunt born in France and and uncle born in England as my grandparents, good Catholic Poles that they were, would not let something as trivial as a forced march out of Europe get in the way of swelling the ranks of the Catholic church.

bytee, what a load of bollocks. The NDIS is nothing? The BER was nothing? The insulation things was nothing? And so on, all well run or will be well run initiatives by the current Rudd-Gillard government that have been lied about (check the auditor if you don’t know that the media and Abbott/libs have lied) that have kept us out of recession and made society a bit better, but oh, no, its the labor party that bad. I will grant they couldn’t sell their policies well, but with the Murdoch press and acolytes seizing on any sidebar minutiae and ignoring all the good stuff, whilst giving Abbott a free ride, who could?
You read like a lying liberal party stooge, I hope you’re just ignorant, that’s the best case scenario.

They’ve been in power for six years, they can point to all their accomplishments and successful policies. Unfortunately, there aren’t any.

I am sorry, but I’m going to call bullshit here. That the right wing dominated Murdoch press and their ilk have been doing their best to either suppress knowledge of the achievements of the current government, or to misrepresent some of it as being bad does not actually mean that it has not achieved things. That some people, especially those on the right wing do not like those achievements is one thing. But it does not mean that they did not get things done. The main areas they have fallen down on are the asylum seekers issues (which is if anything worse on the other side), marriage equality (though they at least allowed a conscience vote which Tony did not), and PR. Sure there have been some other hiccups, but most of them outside the control of any government. People squawk about how there is not the surplus we were promised! But considering the global financial crisis we’ve got one of the healthiest economies in the world (it’s also not the function of a government to make a profit). 485 bills through parliament since 2010 as of March. More than the previous 3 years by a bit. And that’s with a hung parliament, having to negotiate with independents. The previous Howard government maybe got a few more through with a majority government. But not by much.
I’m proud that we’ve got a carbon price, and that it’s working, and that some of its naysayers are now behind it. I’m proud of the NDIS, I’m looking forward to the NBN, this investment in infrastructure which will reap benefits for many in the future.
No, I don’t think this government is perfect. I don’t think that such a thing exists, but to claim that this government has done nothing at all is arguing from ignorance. I really hope that most of the ‘polls’ turn out to be wrong, or largely confirmation bias, because while I think that the current government could certainly do some things better, the thought of Mr Abbott in the Lodge fills me with dread. (Though due to various legalities to do with double dissolutions I suspect even if he gets in he won’t find it that easy to wind back all the good legislation which has been passed to combat climate change).

Liberturds are weird though, they tend to take Leftist social policies and Rightist fiscal policies and just throw them all together in an orgy of pseudo-anarchism (which is generally regarded as a Leftist philosophy).

The big wig Liberal present at the dinner, Joe Hockey, pulled a “Dear Muslima” today to deflect from any criticism, asking and I paraphrase “there are dead asylum seekers floating in our oceans and 200 workers in Geelong lost their jobs, and this is the biggest story of the day ?”. Despiccable assholes, the lot of them. And they will all be in power and running the country come September.

Definitely. Theway I see it is that the Democrats are center-right Tories and the Republicans are the BNP/EDL/National Front. There is no significant left, center left, or even centrist party in the U.S.

Tony Abbott standing in front of a ‘Ditch the witch’ sign on two separate occasions, the Prime Minister’s body parts on a Liberal Party fundraiser dinner menu, Liberal party members and senior members have talked about slitting the PMs throat (Ciobo), kicking her death (Morris), putting the PM in a chaff bag and dumping her in the ocean (Jones), using baseball bats on the PM (Abbott), the PM is a stinking corpse (Bolt).

This is how Right wing men treat women in this country. Even the Prime Minister. /

A national newspaper named a horse as its female athlete of the year, and Rebel Sport hired the wife of a cricket player as their brand ambassador / apparently every actual female athlete in the country was busy /

Hi Brian, I’m not ignorant, and I’m in the majority. If you don’t believe me, wait till september. Let’s look at the accomplishments you name. 1. NDIS is nothing? The NDIS isn’t a bad idea but they’ve done such a brilliant job of ruining the Govt finances that they can’t fund it. The NDIS is not in place. After being in power for 6 years, it’s still just talk. The interest only on the Govt. debt run up by Juliar and Swanny would fund the NDIS. Wouldn’t that have been nice for all those people genuinely in need? With a competent Labor Govt in power they could have been getting the help instead of hearing about how great it’s going to be (one day). 2. The BER was nothing? I agree. The BER was one of the greatest wastes of money ever seen. Schools getting new assembly halls that they didn’t need at three times the normal price. The insulation things? So badly conceived and implemented that many people died trying to install the stuff. That one was Garrett’s biggest blunder. Haven’t heard much from him since. I think he’s been in “Time-Out” for the past 2 years. I’m not in the Liberal party, so the lying stooge reference is hereby politely denied.

Hi Ariaflame. Here’s something you may not know. Whitlam’s biggest supporter going into his winning election was Rupert Murdoch, (Supplied him with funds, offices and advertising support) With all those letters after your name I assume you’re old enough to remember Whitlam? Your assumption that all newspaper barons support conservatives is a myth. By the way, Whitlam is Julia’s biggest fan. Thanks to her he will no longer be going down in history as Australia’s worst ever PM. The NBN? Totally overpriced and not good value for money the way it’s designed. What farmers in rural Australia need is infrastructure, not faster Porn downloads. Proud of the Carbon Tax? It would have been better if she hadn’t categorically promised pre-election that it wouldn’t happen. There’s that whole “Truth” thing again… Like the budget. How much is Australia’s average temperature going to drop by as a result of the Carbon Tax? You say that it’s not the responsibility of a Govt to run at a profit? It’s not their job to mortgage the financial future either. Remember that socialism only works while there’s still somebody left to rob. P.S. PZ always asks us to play nice, so even though I’m being described as an ignorant, lying, bullshitting, stooge, I will simply say that if your parents ever get married, don’t bother inviting me to the wedding….

There’s no better way to do the NBN, whatever one thinks of it. All other talk is FUD of one sort or another. The Libs don’t have a viable alternative, especially not by their own standards. It’s opposition for opposition’s sake and they know it (as with most of the stuff they say for that matter). You can just about see Turnbull cringe as he says this stuff and throws his lot in with some Depression Baby thinking that sounds like it comes from Dame Edna’s dad “We just don’t noid it. Roids n’ cahs n that is what made this caahntroi. Dunno whoi we noid this fancy foreign garbage.”

Ariaflame and Brian, By way of clarification. I do realise that the NDIS is due to start July 1st but Labor’s own statements say that it won’t reach 90% coverage before 2019. Plus WA isn’t on board yet. The Medicare Levy increase worth about 3.3Billion annually isn’t enough to fund it. To me the NDIS is another great example of a potentially good idea mismanaged and stuffed up by this Govt (Like the BER, NBN and Insulation)

Muz, There are better ways to do the NBN. I’ll happily admit I’m not an expert but I have spoken one on one with some. I can’t name them but at least one was on a previous Govt’s advisory committee on this subject Again, the NBN is not in itself a bad idea, just the implementation and costing is typical Labor extravagance.

Guys, to all of you. Here’s a thought. I believe that the labor party could easily get into power and stay there for a very long time if they did the following. 1. Balance the Budget. 2. Only spend what you’ve got. 3. Don’t raise taxes or borrow money to fund every social reform you can think of. It’s a vicious cycle that seems to repeat itself in this country. If we ever get a Labor Govt that can show restraint and balance the books, I wouldn’t be bitching about them on Blog sites.

A large portion of the outlay (namely creating a new network) is because they essentially have to overwrite telstra. There’s been a bit more give and take since the initial plan, but that’s why it hurts more than it might (Telstra could have sued if they put a foot wrong and if I remember rightly promised to do so).
There’s quite a few experts who’ll tell you this was the way to go, both legal and technical.

(Labor’s occasional problem has been they try to do things, rather than just turtle and make money. Budgets being something the electorate cares inordinately about for some reason. I doubt they even know why in general. Libs instead can get away with astounding cronyism like the whole Mission International thing – a scandal which would have been frontpage news for weeks like the insulation business had Labor been behind it – or borderline criminal corruption like the whole Patrick thing. But the books look good so, y’know, must be nothing.)

Muz, I agree that Labor try to do things. It’s just that they seem to be so earth-shatteringly bad at implementing. Whitlam was bad, Julia is Horrific. To be fair, Hawke was reasonably good, but I put a fair amount of that down to Keating. Most Governments get 2 terms. Australians seem to to understand that 1 term usually isn’t enough to be judged fairly. Labor has not competently accomplished enough in two terms to be given a passing grade. The electorate cares inordinately about budgets because they can relate it to their own lives. Spend more than you earn and you will end up unhappy. Why are you up at this hour? :)

The insulation things? So badly conceived and implemented that many people died trying to install the stuff.

People died installing insulation into roofs because of poor training, poor work practices and poor safety regulation. All of these things are covered by existing regulations and it is the failings of these regulations that possibly allowed these deaths.
To imply that the insulation scheme is responsible for these deaths to make a political point is low.

As a queer female with autism and Aboriginal ancestry, I fear September because Tony Abbott will be in charge. I can kiss any hope of equal marriage rights goodbye for the next few years, kiss the hope of getting world-standard internet goodbye, and will have to hope that they don’t decide to kick long-term DSP receivers like me off the pension and onto something like Austudy while I’m at uni. :(

The LNP/Coalition are great if you’re white, rich and male or useful to those people.

The “Mad Monk” moniker has some substance attached to it. The misogynist arch-conservative Prime Monster-in-waiting actually studied to become a Catholic priest. He failed at the first hurdle when his girlfriend got pregnant. Given his name and leadership aspirations a more appropriate name is the “Mad Abbott” and it should come as no surprise that there is a Costello in the same party.

If it boiled down to a choice between a Catholic zealot and a small-breasted redhead with a cellulite problem I’d choose the redhead every time. If there was a decent politician on offer I wouldn’t choose either of them

If it boiled down to a choice between a Catholic zealot and a small-breasted redhead with a cellulite problem I’d choose the redhead every time. If there was a decent politician on offer I wouldn’t choose either of them

Are you actually intending to imply that the “small-breasted redhead with cellulite” traits are what make her unsuitable?

Liberturds are weird though, they tend to take Leftist social policies and Rightist fiscal policies and just throw them all together in an orgy of pseudo-anarchism (which is generally regarded as a Leftist philosophy).

Yes and no. They favor a limited selection of the social policies favored by the left, notably decriminializing and/or legalizing most/all drugs and often opposition to aggressive war. They consistently oppose civil rights legislation, worker protections, unions generally, single-payer health care, and the rest of the things leftists and progressives tend to favor. They’re not anarchists per se, but anti-statists.

Regarding the pink batts thing that dishonest people like to bring up as a failure of the current government. Yes, during the massive increase of people installing insulation there were some who went to cowboys and as a result of poor training there were fatalities and problems. What they usually ignore is that the number of incidents per installation (or per 100000 installations probably metric used) actually went down during this period. In other words the chance of something going wrong decreased. The only reason the absolute amount of incidents went up was because the number of installations went up.

Whitlam was before my time I am afraid. And should Abbott get in I figure he will manage to get the ‘worst PM’ easily.

The Australian media is dominated by Murdoch, shock jocks, and by shallow short-news-cycle talking points. Even the ABC now just predominantly tows the Murdoch press line. So, we end up with a population believing that we’re in dire economic peril, even though we have the healthiest economy in the world, etc. Bytee above is a good example of these widely held misapprehensions.
So yeah, excluding some unprecedented upset, Abbot will win, the polls are pretty unequivocal. It’s going to be a nightmare, but at this point I’m just trying to come to terms with it. I’m just consoling myself by remembering that his conservative views aren’t so so strong as to prevent him from dropping them whenever it’s politically convenient. For instance: he’ll happily do paid parental leave to get women on side when it becomes overwhelmingly obvious that he’s a misogynistic dinosaur.

What WILL be interesting is: if out of election mode ( ie PM ), will Abbot be able to gag his own thinly veiled racist and sexist comments? Or will he just say what he wants because… You know… Important White Man?

By the way, a reasonable person might argue that William McMahon was the worst prime minister; certainly not Whitlam, the progressive darling who introduced universal healthcare, free university (oh to be born 30 years earlier…), legal aid, representing women in politics, eliminating executions, ending conscription, etc. Don’t you dare call him the worst bytee! He’s my special little Goughy-woffee.

With the exception of one dimwitted Labour idiot who tried to conscript Australians to defend “King and country in WW1 our ranks of bad prime ministers have been dominated by right wing conservatives from the liberal party. Whitlam was actually one of our best Prime Ministers. He withdrew Australian troops from th obscenity of the Vietnam War that our Liberal Prime Ministers had gotten us into. He ended conscription, made university education free, (the conservatives later squashed this), and brought in a national health insurance scheme which the conservatives later privatised. He brought in major wage reforms including equal wages for women and attempted to end the sweatshop wages paid to people under 21. He was in the process of buying back Australian industry and resources from foreign multinationals when the Murdoch Pres reared its perpetually ugly head and waged a sustained misinformation campaign against him. This resulted in his governments dismissal in a bloodless coup engineered by the leader of the Liberal opposition. The government was sacked by the Governor _ General who represented not Australians but the Queen of England. Australia has yet to have its revolution to wrest final control of its destiny from a foreign unelected monarch. Unfortunately too many people, particularly on the conservative side like it when “Her Maj” confers undeserved honours on them, (the going price for a knighthood at one point was $100,000 delivered in a brown paper bag to a conservative state premier).

The interest only on the Govt. debt run up by Juliar and Swanny would fund the NDIS. Wouldn’t that have been nice for all those people genuinely in need?

Wouldn’t it have been nice if the mining tax had actually delivered in its original less watered down form – that and the GFC and factyors outdside the governments control like slower than expected Chinese growth have actually been the problem.

The Aussie economy is doing much better under the ALP than it was under the last Howard years for example lower interest rates, inflation and unemployment. I don’t think you realise how good Labour have been economic management~wise.

Proud of the Carbon Tax? It would have been better if she hadn’t categorically promised pre-election that it wouldn’t happen. There’s that whole “Truth” thing again…

Thinking of truth, have you forgotten the “Mad Abbott’s” hyperbolic claims about how bad the carbon price would be? Whyalla still exists last time I checked. Gillard made her statement about not introducing the carbon tax on the presumption that she would have majority government. When she needed the Greens to form minority government that had to change.

How much is Australia’s average temperature going to drop by as a result of the Carbon Tax?

Yeesh, the notoriusly stupid Andrew Bolt question. Well, that betrays a lack of original thought on your part bytee as well as showing you’ve entirely missed the point of what the carbon price is about.

Hint : ts not about making the temperature drop so much as stopping it from rising quite as quickly. Its also about at least starting to take action so Australia isn’t left as an international pariah and isn’t left behind by the other nations around the globe when it comes to renewable energy advances. The carbon price is designed to work with other such measures around the globe and is just a first step towards more action.

Do you think we should do nothing about it or prefer Abbott’s unworkable “direct (in)action” plan that, let’s face it, we all know he isn’t serious about?

Remember that socialism only works while there’s still somebody left to rob.

Do you consider paying taxes robbery? Have you never heard of the social contact idea? Ever realised that governments need to be paid for the services they provide us too?

Socialism isn’t robbing people – and whilst I’m not a fan of unfettered socialism I really don’t think you understand what the word means. I’m not a fan of completely unfettered capitalism either – I’m a pragmatist who thinks we need a mixture of the two with some government services and also some private ones too.

I like the term “minarchist”; i.e. someone who wants the state to have the minimum possible powers without completely losing it’s ability to fulfill the basics, such as policing. I think that’s a fairly accurate description of most Libertarians.

Re. Blair; yep that’s understandable :) But I was never much of a Labour fan anyway. I was born in 1990, so my impression of them was entirely shaped by Blair and Brown. I also dislike the fact that they are excessivley legislative and love ‘em some surveillance.

I voted Lib Dems last general election (my first ever one) and still feel I am most ideologically aligned with them, despite them reneging on more than a few promises.

Mal is a paragon of the slime mold genus.
First he conspires with a piece of trash to make false claims against another Pollie by playing the Gay card.
Then he pulls the sexist card
Plus every other card known to man.

The man qualifies as a member of the Nats, old joke: They used to be called the Country Party. They noticed the Liberals got shortened to the Libs and Labor got shortened to the Labs. They thought to be cool they’d shorten their name but being bushies and not that good at spelling shortened it to the Cunts. One of the brighter Lib colleagues let them know what they’d done and they changed to the Nats.

Mal is the doyen of the want to be the Tea Party end of the Nationals.

First the “conspire to pervert the course of justice card” with a piece of dirt plant claiming Gay sexual Harassment.
Then the sexist card.
Plus every other card from the dark end of the pool

Old joke, as he’s a National:
Many years ago they were called The Country Party, right wing socialists.
The party elders noticed that the Liberal party were being called the Libs.
They also noticed the Australian Labor party got shortened to Lab.
Wanting to get in on the act they shortened their party name to the Cunts, couldn't spell real well in the bush back then.
Luckily one of the brighter Libs noticed and they quickly changed to the National Party

@68. John Morales : “Well-poisoner” huh? Because I used a derogatory nickname for a politician I hate and hold in utter contempt? Wha ..? I don’t understand where that came from!

@ 69. rorschach :““Mad monk” is much more accurate.”

Monks are traditionally celibate and isolated from the world often having vows of silence ands poverty and living lives of quiet meditation in monasteries. If only that were true of Tony Abbott at least the last few parts of it.

@67. drbunsen, le savant fous : Yeah, well I’m hoping we can change that because I think its a more accurate descriptive effective term. “Warming” is too mild a term and carries too many positive connotations – overheating indicates that we have more of a problem and the first words are more direct and emphatic.

– The Liberal Democrats
– The Labour party (now New Labour)
– The Conservative Party
– The Green Party
– The British National Party
– The UK Independance Party

To give a little more detail:
The first three have jumped around a bit over the past few decades.
Formerly (pre-Thatcher):Conservatives (Tories) were pragmatic centre-right, supporting Tradition, the monarchy, the Church of England, business, etc, but (being genuinely conservative, in the sense of not liking large/rapid change, kept a lot of the genuinely socialist policies introduced by Labour (nationalised industries, etc).Labour was socialist. Not “socialist” in the way the Republicans call anyone to the left of Ayn Rand socialist, but in the way of being strongly linked to the trade unions, having a party constitution that described them as “socialist”, and supporting public ownership of industry.
The Liberal Party was an intermediate. And an ellectoral irrelivance.

After Thatcher:
The Conservatives became Republican-style radical freemarkers. Income Tax rates were cut from 33% to 30% (basic rate) and 83% to 60% (top rate) (Later reduced to 25% and 40% respectively). Various publicly owned industries and infrastructure were privatised.
Labour remained a socialist party, and stayed in opposition.
The Liberal Party merged with the Social Democrats to become the Liberal Democrats, adopted an official policy of remaining intermediate between the Tories and Labour, and (still) remained electoraily irrelevant. Most famous for wanting to change the voting system to proportional representation.

After Blair:
Labour abandoned socialism (they changed their constitution to stop calling to public ownership of industry) and won the next election. This new version of Labour was refered to by both themselves and the public as “New Labour”, but this wasn’t an official name change. They adopted a lot of Concervative/Thatcherite policies (particularly regarding privitisation and tax rates), but also increased various social programs.
The Tories remained Thatcherite, unpopular, and in opposition.
The Lib Dems remained a minor party.

As of now: It’s a bit hard to say what any of them stand for.
The Conservatives won a plurality rather than a majority in the last election, and formed a coalition with the Liberals, much to the annoyance of a lot of people who voted for them. The coalition main policies (or at least the ones causing the most anger)seem to be slashing public spending (infuriating a lot of Liberal voters, who will probably defect to Labour) and supporting same-sex marriage (causing a lot of Tories to fume and splutter and threated to defect to UKIP).
Labour seems to be rejecting the “New Labour” project, but doesn’t quite seem to know what to do instead.

As for the others:
Green: Environmentalist/left-wing.

UK Independence Party (UKIP): Main policy is withdrawl from the EU. On other issues, used to be (or give the impression of being) something of a right-libertarian party, wanting to “get the government out of people’s lives”, but have now become (or revealed themselves as) just a nasty right-wing party and a refuge for all the Tories who object to gay marriage, immigration, or doing anything about global warming. Also don’t seem to be very good at informing their members what they stand for on various issues, resulting in lots of their candidates and spokesmen contradicting each other.

British National Party (BNP): Thugs, fascists, and racists, attempting to look respectable, but too stupid to pull it off. (They typically give the game away by getting into bar fights, or putting up spokesmen who say things like “I’m not racist… but there are too many black people in this country”).

I think calling the Labor party ‘centre-left’ is a bit naive… similar to how calling the US Democrats ‘centre-left’ is a bit naive.

Oh, they’re far and away better than what the Mad Monk has in store for us after the next election (and at this point unfortunately he’s pretty much guaranteed a victory). They were willing to implement the NBN, the NDIS, and at least they tried to do something about putting a price on carbon, even if they then went and gave all the major polluters compensation to make sure they didn’t actually have to, you know, emit less carbon.

But they really are a centre-right party, really. Their immigration policy is racist – the best thing that can be said about it is that it’s slightly less racist than the Coalition’s policy.

Since the implosion of the Democrats, the only genuinely left-wing party that still exists is the Greens. Unfortunately the major parties seem to be willing to do anything if it’ll garner them votes in Western Sydney (home of the Cronulla Race Riots!), and that means constant talk about ‘stopping the boats’ and ‘keeping them refugees from taking all the jobs’. It means they can only talk about the Carbon Tax in terms of whether or not Australians will be financially richer.

But as much as I despise some of Labor’s policies, ultimately I have to support them (through our voting system – I’ll vote for the Greens, but since they’ll never win in my seat my preference will end up going to one of the major parties, and it sure as hell won’t be the Liberals or the Nationals). I feel for our US brethren… they don’t even have a party like the Greens to provide even token small-L liberal representation.

Socialists are the left, all others except the greens are right winged. Liberals are the makers of today’s capitalist systems. There are of course differences in which of the liberal core values different liberal parties and traditions feel most strongly for. But they are all united in the idea of small government, low taxes, and the private ownership of societies assets. Government should do as little as possible, since Keynes some of the liberal parties wants to stimulate the economy in recession. But that does not make them “the left”. What you have in the U.S is the right and the crazy right. The same is sadly true in most western countries today.
The liberals have sold out most of my countries public services and plunged many people in to unemployment in the name of promoting more “choice” and the “individuals right to own public property”. And as you can guess our once great public healthcare system is now owned by private international corporations. That made the services more expensive, laid of many hardworking nurses forcing the ones that remains to work even harder. And lowered the quality of care we now give to our elderly. This is Liberalism, and the reason you think there’s a big difference between american liberals and European ones is because you have nothing left of the public to sell out. And the Communist scare during the cold war made any real left party impossible.